But the unrestricted rivalry amongst print shops led quickly to the dissemination of competing and unauthorized editions of various works, which diminished prospects of any payment, or even entailed loss, for the authors, editors, and printers of the original issue, and thus discouraged further undertaking.
European rulers also quickly realized that the granting of legal monopolies on wide distribution of printed works could be employed for political purposes—not only by themselves, but also by their opponents.
[6] The events of the French Revolution led Catherine to have most private print shops closed down again; and her successor Paul I prohibited in 1808 the importation of foreign books again.
[14] After the October Revolution, the Tsarist copyright law from 1911 remained initially in force, although it was partly invalidated by numerous decrees.
[42] Individual republics of the USSR were free to devise their own rules for standard publication contracts and royalty tariffs.
[43] The exercise of copyright in the Soviet Union was subject to the rules of censorship and the literary controls, the press legislation, the laws on printing, publishing, and selling, and Party directives.
[52] The VAAP took over the VUOAP's function as a collecting society, but additionally held the state monopoly on foreign trade in copyrights.
[63] The provisions of the 1991 Fundamentals, which were scheduled to enter in force on January 1, 1992, never became effective in the Soviet Union, as the USSR was dissolved before that date.
[64] Section IV of the 1991 Fundamentals was in effect for exactly one year until the new Copyright law of the Russian Federation entered in force on August 3, 1993.
The main innovations were much more detailed regulations on neighbouring rights, the adaptation of the law to new technologies, an expansion of contractual freedom, and provisions on collecting societies.
[71] The rights were always vested in the natural person who had created the work; legal entities could no longer be original copyright owners.
On other works first published in a foreign country, or, if unpublished, existed in objective form only abroad, the law specified they were subject to copyright in Russia according to the provisions of the international treaties the Russian Federation was a member of.
[97] The question was resolved definitively only in 2006, when the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation confirmed the retroactivity of the 1993 law, explaining that it placed even works under copyright again if their old, Soviet 25-year term had already expired.
[103] Since its foundation as an independent successor state of the former Soviet Union, the Russian Federation had been engaged in a large legislative project of developing a new Civil Code, which was also to encompass the intellectual property laws.
Several drafts for new chapters on intellectual property rights including copyrights were prepared, but the matter proved so difficult that this legislation was postponed several times.
[104] The draft of the new intellectual property legislation was heavily criticized for being too unclear and for conflicting with Russia's international obligations, and also for introducing several untested novelties.
[105][106] Finally, the new intellectual property laws were included in part IV of the Russian Civil Code as articles 1225 to 1551.
231-FL)[109] was signed on the same day;[107] it declared part IV of the Civil Code to enter in force on January 1, 2008 with the effect of invalidating and replacing all previous intellectual property legislation.
Under Western pressure, Russia planned to join the Berne Convention in the early 20th century, but that was, according to Stoyanovitch, prevented by the outbreak of World War I.
[131] When the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russia as the largest successor state adopted all international obligations of the former USSR, including its membership to the UCC.
[132] Consequently, Russia was henceforth considered a member of the UCC (in the 1952 Geneva text) since the date of the adherence of the USSR to that treaty, i.e., since May 27, 1973.
The intent of the Moscow agreement was to avoid that older Soviet works became copyrighted in only some of the successor states, but would become part of the public domain in some of the others.
[137] Also in 1993, Russia and Switzerland concluded a trade agreement in which they granted each other most-favoured-nation status concerning intellectual property rights.
[139] A comprehensive trade treaty with the European Union that was signed on June 24, 1994,[138] contained similar provisions regarding intellectual property.
[143] The Geneva Convention entered in force with respect to Russia on March 13, 1995 and was not retroactive: it covered only phonograms recorded after that date.
[150] Maggs and Sergeyev, for instance, pointed out in 2000 that the reservation was inadmissible under article 30(1) of the Berne Convention;[151] Podshibikhin and Leontiev agreed in 2002.
[155] In 2012 Russia withdrew reservation in its declaration of accession, which was main argument in position of supporters of uncopyrightability of pre-1973 foreign works.
[167] One well-known case concerned the actions of the four Soviet composers Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Prokofiev, and Myaskovsky against the movie company 20th Century Fox.
This practice, known as tamizdat in the Soviet Union, could result in serious repercussions for the authors in the USSR, but was still employed as one of the few ways the governmental censorship could be bypassed.
Maxim Gorky and Sergei Prokofiev, for instance, both had lived for some time abroad and published works in other countries that were members of the Berne Convention.